Asking for and receiving feedback is one of the most important parts of any designer's role. This is true regardless of industry or organization size.
Collecting, sorting, and prioritizing feedback in your design process is crucial. Whether you're a solo freelancer working directly with clients or part of a large cross-functional scrum team, you need to gather and understand feedback as it relates to objectives, timelines, and budget.
Without this, you can find yourself operating in a vacuum.
This can lead to presenting something that doesn’t align with what stakeholders had in mind or a solution that isn’t technically feasible with the tech stack the team is using.
What we’ll cover
Let’s talk about getting feedback from three different points of contact within your product team:
- Immediate Teammates
- Sister Scrum Teams
- Stakeholders
1. Getting Feedback from Your Immediate Team
When to Ask for Feedback
Scrum teams typically include multiple designers, a Product Owner, and several engineers. Each role brings unique knowledge and goals to completing a project. Understanding when and how to engage these different roles is key to your success.
Ask for feedback early and often.
This prevents you from going too far down a path that doesn't align with your teammates and stakeholders. At Headway, we collect feedback on design work several times a week—sometimes daily.
The Scheduling Challenge
Getting everyone on a large product team to attend design reviews can be tough with packed calendars. Don't let scheduling conflicts prevent you from getting the feedback you need to move forward.
Tools for Asynchronous Feedback
Video Creates Context: Why Loom Works
Leverage tools like Loom to send asynchronous updates and collect quick feedback. Loom lets you create screen recordings with voiceover, walking through your latest design updates.
We prefer this over sending just a Figma link.
Why? Important context about your decision-making process and next steps often gets lost in static mockups or prototypes. Plus, collaborators who aren't Figma experts may find the interface confusing.
The bottom line: Asynchronous feedback collection helps you gather input quickly and more frequently. Stakeholders appreciate progress updates and the chance to have their voice heard.
What to Include in Your Videos
With video recordings, you can discuss your design process and propose different options with their pros and cons. Collaborators can then respond using video comments or leave thoughts directly in the Figma file.
This gives viewers the full picture and makes it easier for them to provide meaningful, actionable feedback rather than vague comments.
Tips for Quick Daily Reviews
Beyond tools like Loom, establish a regular meeting schedule for formal design reviews. At larger organizations, this might include key business leaders and collaborators outside your immediate team.
Watch out for meeting bloat
These sessions can get unwieldy fast. Having a clear, organized process for presenting work and collecting feedback will be essential to your success.
2. Collaborating with Sister Scrum Teams
Why Cross-Team Collaboration Matters
In larger organizations, multiple scrum teams often work on different features within the same product. Sharing updates and collecting feedback from these sister teams ensures consistent UI patterns across the entire user experience.
Even with brand guidelines and design systems, there's always room for interpretation. Cross-team collaboration fills those gaps.
Keeping UI Consistent Across Features
Designer-to-Designer Reviews
Consider setting up regular meetings where designers from each team share work and provide feedback to each other. This designer-focused approach helps maintain consistency before features reach development.
Timing Your Reviews
Mid-sprint reviews work best. Schedule cross-team design reviews during the middle of a sprint when work is still flexible. This gives you time to incorporate feedback before development begins.
Organizing Cross-Team Design Reviews
Meeting Structure Options
You have two main approaches:
- Intimate format: Invite only your immediate scrum team
- Open format: Include all scrum teams on the same product (engineers, designers, and product owners)
Time Management
Give each designer a designated time slot to present their work. This prevents meetings from running long and ensures everyone gets heard.
Using FigJam or Miro for Group Feedback
Why Visual Feedback Works Better
Instead of collecting feedback live on calls, set up a FigJam or Miro board with static images or prototype links. This approach offers several benefits:
- Visual context - Everyone sees the same thing at the same time
- Asynchronous input - Collaborators can add thoughts using sticky notes without being called on individually
- Documented feedback - All comments are captured and attributed to specific people
- Less meeting fatigue - No need to go around the room asking for input
Post-Development Engineer Reviews
Once a feature is complete, consider holding a design review specifically for engineers on your scrum team. This gives them a chance to ask questions about expected behavior in various scenarios, like empty states or edge cases.
Why It Matters: These technical reviews help prevent last-minute surprises and ensure the final implementation matches your design intent.
3. Presenting Updates to Stakeholders
Understanding the Stakeholder Landscape
When working on digital products, there are often many people involved in a build. Understanding the viewpoints, goals and objectives of each role is important inprioritizing feedback as it relates to what you should do in the immediate future, savefor later, or ignore altogether.
How to Get Busy Executives to Engage
The Reality of Executive Schedules
VP and C-Suite stakeholders have extremely packed calendars with minimal time for reviewing content. They often respond to messages quickly between meetings or while multitasking on calls.
The key: Make your requests as concise as possible.
Why Traditional Methods Fall Short
While Loom videos with voiceover work well for team feedback, they're often too long for busy executives who need to consume content while doing other things.
Creating Effective QuickTime Demos
The Silent Demo Advantage
Use QuickTime's screen recorder to create prototype demos without voiceover. You can showcase functionality and visual design choices in one minute or less.
Why no voiceover works better:
- Content can be viewed while participating in calls
- Executives can pause and replay specific sections
- Videos load faster and are easier to share
Bonus Benefits for Stakeholders
Presentation-Ready Content
QuickTime videos embed easily into presentation decks, giving executives polished content to report on progress. This saves you time by eliminating the need to create additional assets.
Meeting Facilitation
Stakeholders love being able to pause videos during presentations to facilitate discussion or answer questions. This interactive element keeps meetings focused and productive. Silent, short demos respect executive time constraints while delivering the visual context they need to make informed decisions.
Final Tips for Better Design Feedback Loops
Better feedback isn't about collecting more opinions—it's about getting the right input from the right people at the right time using the right method.
Seek Feedback Early and Often
Don't wait until you're deep into a design to ask for input. Regular check-ins with all collaborators prevent you from veering too far off course and save time in the long run.
Understand Each Role's Perspective
Every team member brings a unique viewpoint that makes your solutions stronger:
- Engineers focus on technical feasibility
- Product owners prioritize business goals and timelines
- Stakeholders consider budget and strategic alignment
Tapping into these diverse perspectives creates solutions that are aesthetically pleasing, technically sound, and strategically aligned.
Match Your Method to Your Audience
Know who you're talking to and choose the right communication tool:
- Detailed Loom videos for teammates who need context
- Silent QuickTime demos for busy executives
- Collaborative FigJam boards for cross-team reviews
Working within the confines of busy schedules requires adapting your approach to fit their workflow, not yours.
Establish Regular Rhythms
Set up consistent meeting cadences with your collaborators and stakeholders. Predictable touchpoints create alignment and prevent last-minute surprises.
